1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of computer displays and more particularly to a device that allows two or more computers to be used with one monitor.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is sometimes necessary for a computer user to use two or more different computers such as two PCs. Such a situation may arise, for example, when a user must perform some tasks on one computer attached to a network and other tasks on another computer not attached to the network. In such a situation, it is cumbersome for a user to have two monitors, two keyboards and two mice on his desktop.
The prior art has attempted to deal with this problem by providing switches that will allow two computer systems to share one monitor while the prior art switches are helpful to some extent, there are still problems associated with these switches. First, two keyboards and two mice are still required. Thus, a desktop may still be cluttered even with the elimination of one display.
Second, it is sometimes helpful or necessary to be able to view information from one computer system while working on the other computer system. The prior art switches do not provide this function; they can only select one computer or the other for display at any one time.
What is needed is a device that can simultaneously display the output of at least two computers on a single screen and a device that will allow at least two computers to share a mouse and keyboard as well as a monitor.
The invention overcomes to a great extent the aforementioned problems by providing a switchbox that can be used to simultaneously display the output of two computers on a single monitor in a manner similar to the manner in which television sets provide picture-in-picture (PIP) viewing. In one embodiment, computer video is converted to a format such as NTSC so that existing television set PIP receivers may be employed with little or no modification. The switchbox also sends keyboard and mouse signals to the computer corresponding to the information displayed in the main screen area and dummy keyboard and mouse signals to the computer corresponding to the PIP window.
In another embodiment, the switchbox utilizes a processor to control the content of the main display area and PIP window using cursor position.